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| Registrar Suspends Torrent Domain For DMCA Non-Compliance Posted: 14 Jun 2014 01:21 AM PDT
Today we take a look at an interesting case that developed this week involving a movie anti-piracy company, a domain registrar and a torrent site. Bittorrent.pm is a torrent index that doesn’t host any torrents itself but links to those to be found elsewhere. The site registered its domain with well-known registrar Internet.bs last year. The third player in the mix is a company called Rico Management, apparently acting in an anti-piracy capacity for the movie Cold in July. During the past few days it became clear that Rico Management were trying to have some torrents removed from Bittorrent.pm. However, Bittorrent.pm only became aware of the complaint after being contacted by its registrar, Internet.bs. Since Bittorrent.pm hadn’t provided a formal tool or contact mechanism for facilitating removals, Rico complained directly to the registrar. In emails seen by TorrentFreak, Internet BS responded to Rico assuring them that action of some type would definitely be taken. “I added our customers in BCC of this email and they will get back to you shortly regarding this. If you do not get any answers within 48 hour please get back to us and we will investigate and suspend the domains,” the registrar told Rico. When the operator of Bittorrent.pm questioned the potential suspension of his domain, Internet BS told him he needed to take action, since the registrar did not want to become liable for any infringements. “We did not say we will suspend the domain but we will suspend it if you do not reply to the complainant,” Bittorrent.pm’s owner was told. “The difference is in the fact that, by answering to the complainant, you assume responsibility for the content on your website and we can also understand better what you are doing.” “If you do not answer to the complainant we can be found liable for being informed In the meantime, Bittorrent.pm protested that he had no torrents on his site to be removed, a comment that solicited the following response from a Jeffrey Moreira at Rico Management. “You do not have any clear contact on your page to deal with any issues that a copyright holder has with you. I have had to jump through hoops to finally get a response directly from you about bittorent.pm,” Moreira wrote. “You have multiple torrent files available for torrent download on your site. Eventually Internet.bs carried through with its threat to suspend the domain. It also received more complaints about Bittorrent.pm, something which further tested relations. “As the complainant said you have absolutely no contact details on your website. We received about 15 new complaints regarding your website today. You need to have some contact details as we cannot act as your abuse department especially with the very low margin that we have on domain names,” the registrar wrote. The operator of Internet BS argued back that there is nothing in his domain terms and conditions that obligates him to have such an abuse mechanism, but apparently that didn’t have the desired effect. His domain remains suspended and he’s currently working to transfer it to a new registrar. The approach taken by Internet BS in response to the Bittorent.pm issue raises a number of questions, including whether a registrar should get involved in this kind of dispute and whether they are in the best position to play judge and jury. Obviously Internet BS wants to abide by the DMCA in this case, but as Bittorrent.pm points out, as a Barbados-based company it doesn’t necessarily have to. Bittorrent.pm is not based in the US either, although Rico Management appears to be. Also, while it could be argued that Bittorrent.pm should have a contact form, it’s ironic that RicoManagement.com has no outward web presence at all to help show who they are or indicate that what they are doing is legitimate. At the moment all they have is a GoDaddy holding page, and Internet BS were apparently happy to act on that. TorrentFreak requested comment from both Internet BS and Rico Management but we are yet to receive a response. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
| MPAA’s Chris Dodd Praises Pirate Site Blockades Posted: 13 Jun 2014 10:09 AM PDT
One of the main topics of discussion was Internet piracy, and how to prevent people from accessing and sharing copyrighted works without permission. Website blocking is one of the anti-piracy tools that was mentioned frequently . In recent years the UK has become a leader on this front, with the High Court ordering local ISPs to block access to dozens of popular file-sharing sites, including The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents. MPAA chief Chris Dodd, who delivered a speech at the Summit, applauded the UK approach. The former U.S. Senator believes that these restrictions are helping to decrease the piracy problem. “Here in the United Kingdom, the balanced and proportionate use of civil procedures has made tremendous progress in tackling infringing websites. To date, access to over 40 pirate sites focused on infringing copyright for commercial gain, have been blocked,” Dodd said. According to Dodd these blockades have proven to be one of the most effective anti-piracy measures in the world, made possible by a provision in local copyright law. “In particular, Section 97A of the Copyright Act allowing courts to issue injunctions against service providers who know their services are being utilized for infringing purposes, has been one of the most effective tools anywhere in the world,” Dodd says. Despite the MPAA’s faith in website blockades, which is not shared by everyone, the movie group has never attempted to ask a U.S. court for a similar injunction. This is surprising since nearly all the sites that are blocked in the UK have far more users from the United States. TorrentFreak asked the MPAA to explain this lack of action, but we have yet to hear back from them. Previously we spoke to an insider who admitted that these type of ISP blockades are harder to get in place under United States law, which is one of the reasons why the copyright holders haven’t tried this yet. The issue became even more complicated after the copyright holders’ push for SOPA failed early 2012. In part, SOPA was designed to give copyright holders a shortcut to request injunctions against pirate sites. Putting the law aside, the MPAA has made it clear that it’s keen on maintaining good relationships with the Internet providers. ISPs and copyright holders are taking part in a voluntary agreement to “alert” pirates, which will undoubtedly be harmed if additional blocking demands appear on the table. For now, it seems that the MPAA and other industry groups will continue to press for more voluntary deals in the U.S. Interestingly, Dodd specifically calls for a cooperation with search engines to indirectly block pirate sites, instead of asking for a more direct blockade from ISPs. “If we convince these search engines to join our efforts to shut down illegal sites, it would be a significant step forward in our ongoing efforts to protect creators,” he said. Thus far Google and other search engines have refused to remove pirate sites from their search indexes. Also, one has to wonder how effective that would be. Thus far Google has removed more than two million pages from The Pirate Bay, but the site’s traffic continues to expand regardless. But then again, even an ISP blockade is easy to circumvent, and perhaps not as effective as the MPAA claims. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
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